Sometimes, a successful sequel does not have to offer anything new '€” this is just what 22 Jump Street offers.

The sequel to the 2012 cop-buddy comedy hit, 21 Jump Street, follows almost exactly the same formula.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have not shied away from making the sequel almost exactly the same as the previous movie.

Cops Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Chaning Tatum) once again go undercover as students to unravel a drug ring '€” only this time they are going into a university instead of a senior high school.

Like in the previous movie, both Schmidt and Jenko screw up an arrest and are sent to the special unit in Jump Street to make amends.

The Jump Street headquarters have been moved across the street to number 22. The new location is the remains of an old church but it belongs to a Vietnamese community and this time both cops pray to the statue of the Vietnamese Jesus rather than the Korean Jesus before they start their undercover mission.

Although 22 Jump Street follows a similar plot and theme, the amount of parody and hilarity in the movie is outrageous and definitely surpasses the first movie. Expect to laugh and be entertained by endless parody and witty lines that make the movie one of the best sequels in a comedy franchise.

The movie also digs deeper to the friendship between Schmidt and Jenko and how they cope with life in the university, the time when high school graduates can finally have their first taste of wild, reckless parties and alcohol drinking without having to worry about being underage and the time when growing up and finding their passions become an integral part of their social lives.

Schmidt and Jenko begin to grow apart during their mission. Jenko finds a new friend he can relate to with the character Zook, a star quarterback in the university'€™s football team who shares the same goofiness, athleticism and passion for sports.

As Jenko and Zook become closer, Schmidt feels left out and finds new friends and relationships in the university'€™s art scene, which is filled with young hipsters trying their best to look the most bizarre and as socially awkward as possible just for the sake of their art.

Schmidt also finds a girlfriend named Maya, who is charmed by his bizarre way of poetry reading during an art improvisation performance class.

At a later point, the relationship between these two and the revelation of Maya'€™s family background contribute to one of the most hilarious twists in the movie.

The movie also brings back two antagonistic characters from the previous flick for a brief moment and introduces a number of interesting new ones, such as the Yang twins, who are blacks but claim they have the name Yang from their Chinese mother, and Pudding '€” Maya'€™s roommate who often surprises both Maya and Schmidt by appearing suddenly before them every time they finish making love or having a romantic chat.

Like in the previous film, 22 Jump Street also pays homage to the past by featuring a character from the 21 Jump Street television series of the late 1980s and a shot which will remind cop-buddy movie fans of Michael Bay'€™s Bad Boys franchise, which set a new standard in the genre back in 1995.

If you are looking for witty comedies and parodies while being nostalgic about your younger college days, 22 Jump Street is a movie to watch. It brings back the fun and wild side of youth with a touch of identity seeking and relationship issues.

In the sequel, the two officers do not have to just crack the case but they have to figure out if they can have a mature relationship.

22 Jump Street
(112 minutes)
Directors: Chris Miller, Phil Lord
Cast: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, Wyatt Russell
Production companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Relativity Media, Media Rights Capital, Original Film
Producers: Channing Tatum, Neal H. Moritz

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